General Probe Rape Case From All Angles

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SPNerThinker

The Sikh community in Kalamboli has demanded thorough investigation and immediate arrest of the second accused in the St Joseph School rape case. The community members also met on Thursday to decide about further action to be taken over the issue.
“This is not for the first time that such a thing is happening with a small girl. The same incident happened last year. The parents of the child had complained about this to the school authorities but it was ignored then. We have the medical reports with us but the case is far from being solved,” president of Kalamboli Gurudwara Veer Singh said.
The incident took place at St. Josephs School in Kalamboli on June 21. The medical reports confirmed rape and the police officials have arrested Firoz Ibrahim, a junior college teacher who denied the claims. He has been remanded to police custody till July 3. Though a second employee is suspected to be involved in the case, he is yet to be arrested.
The Sikh community members had gathered on Tuesday near Gurudwara amidst tight policy security demanding proper police action and immediate arrest of the second accused in the case.
“The police officials had assured us that the culprits will be bought to books in two days but nothing has been done so far. We cant be silent when such things are happening. Hence, we are planning to stage another protest against the police inaction,” Singh said.
The community is upset as its been more than a week the incident was reported and till now the second accused has not even been identified. “According to the victim, there were two people involved in the crime and the police are yet to figure out who it is,” Singh added. When contacted, senior police inspector from Kalamboli Police Station, SK Dubal said, “The investigations are still on and as of now there is no clue about the other accused.”

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1947-2014 (Archived)

Do you know if a rape-investigation in this jurisdiction includes a DNA sample from the victim in order to analyze a match with body fluids/other organic tissue found on the victim with DNA of the accused.

Body fluids and organic tissue could include semen, but also saliva, skin cells under the victims finger nails, and hair.

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SPNerThinker

Honourable Dr. Kaur,
Regards,
Everyday we come across the sexual harassment an rape cases. We can consider both the cases are two sides of the same coin. Actually both showcase the power of man to dominate that of women. As both have one victim---Women. Both are barbaric in nature but many people extenuate sexual harassment to rape just because the victims are not physically harmed. Whereas in rape cases the victim is ravished like an animal for the fulfillment of desire and lust of another men. Both have the same object to undermine the integrity of the victim, physically as well as mentally. Now I come to the Point of DNA Fingerprinting

Yeah the DNA from separate sources are used especially in law enforcement to identify suspects from hair, blood, semen, or other biological materials found at the scene of crime.

Now the question is whether the Police has collected the material which can be used to prove the crime.

Whether the police has collected seminal fluids deposited on the clotes or furniture or in the body of the victim of rape which can be used to acquire a sample of the culprits DNA.

These samples can be compared with those taken from a possible suspect in the case.

But the success rate in DNA tests are very rare in India. It is very difficult to prove the offence in the absence of either circumstantial evidence or an eyewitness, which is very rare in Rape cases.

The investigating officer that collect semen sample can be changed in laboratory. The semen sample at the crime site can be sent by changing the samples. The report can be changed.

Fingerprints can be changed.

Above all Due to the heavy misuse and lack of knowledge of the courts as regads scientific evidnce, the law enforcement machinery is hesitant in applying these techniques. Secondly in order to determine whether scientific evidence is admissible, the court may consider. and public is simply a mute spectator.

Cosider Nithrai case. What happened and what justice has been made. Mr. Pandher has been set free. The offences have been passed to the servant.

Madam, the question to consider is not that we know or not but the question is whether the victim will get justice:
Now consider all the factors mentioned above. We suppose that the DNA samples have been collected and has been sent to Laboratories for testing. What the Lab report will come out, every body knows. Whether the body fluids that has been sent for testing are genuine? Unless and until the corruption is not been checked the justice to the victims will not be provided. If in the channel only one corrupt person you come across the tests will be that which you want.
“Har Shakh pe ullu baitha hai, anzam-e-gulistan kya hoga”
The reply is :
“Ek hi ullu kafi hai gulistan ki barbadi ko har shakh pe ullu baitha hai anzam-e-gulistan kya hoga”
“Owl is sitting at every branch of the garden, what will be the security of the garden”
The reply:
“One owl is enough for the destruction of the garden, on every branch the owl is sitting the secrurity of the garden will be ---that is.”
We suppose all the body fulids and organic tissues prove the offence, saliva, skin cells under the victims finger nails and hair also prove the offence. The person who issues report has still the power to change the report due to presence of owls.

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1947-2014 (Archived)

The proverb of the owl was a moving and powerful metaphor, which sums up an atmosphere where justice may not or cannot or will not be served.

Thank you for answering the question about DNA. I think that answer as a point of fact had to be introduced into the discussion so we have a sense of the investigative baseline reality.

In many places the use of DNA evidence in rape cases is on a scale of all measures relatively recent, and had been used inconsistently. In other words, I wanted to clarify that fact. Now, if the use of DNA samples is "standard" operating procedure in India, it makes it easier for me (perhaps others) to then move ahead more confidently in asking questions about how the law is applied, and whether law enforcement itself has clean hands in the way crimes against women are investigated and prosecuted.

I also agree that sexual harassment and rape are two sides of the same coin. When civil society winks (or makes excuses) for the first, it is giving permission to morally lax thinking on the second.

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SPNerThinker

This is an old news, but here is a clear indication of double standards of our society. We are ready to use the DNA based paternity test to convict a fake Swamy in a rape case. But why is there such reticence; and such convoluted and contorted logic used to deny the benefit of the same scietific test when a woman commits adultery and the evidence is present there for the world to see in the form of a child. Often we hear the argument – “in the best interest of the innocent child”. How does preventing a child from uniting with its biological father serve the best interests of the child? Aha! If it is for money, then why only this particular child should benefit from the legalized extortion? There are far more numbers of deserving children that are starving throughout our country. Those children deserve better than the product of sin, who is clearly the responsibility of its biological mother and its biological father – and no one else.
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In a sensational judgment, controversial godman Premananda was today convicted of rape and murder and awarded double life imprisonment and a cumulative fine of Rs.66.4 lakh. Pudukottai District and Sessions Judge R Banumathi also ruled that the 46-year-old godman should undergo the life sentences consecutively. He should undergo rigorous imprisonment for a further period of 32 years and nine months if he failed to pay the fine, the judge added.
Premananda, a Kandyan Tamil from Sri Lanka who set up an ‘ashram` near Tiruchi in the mid-`80s, was found guilty of raping 13 inmates of his ashram and murdering a disciple, Ravi. The victims were all Sri Lankan Tamils. Along with Premananda, his chief disciple Kamalananda was also awarded life imprisonment and a fine of Rs.12,500 for abetting the crimes and tampering with evidence. The judge said Kamalananda should undergo a further threeyears` RI if he failed to pay the fine.
Kamalananda`s wife, Dr Chandradevi, was found guilty of performing abortions on the rape victims and was sentenced to imprisonment for two years and seven months. But, as she had already spent that period as an undertrial, the judge ordered that she be set free upon paying a fine of Rs.30,000. The judge also awarded life sentence to four other co-accused, all disciplesof Premananda. They were – Balendran, Mayilvahanan, Nandakumar and Satish. While Balendran was fined Rs.10,000, others were ordered to pay Rs.12,000 each. The judge said the fines collected should be used to pay compensation of Rs.5 lakh each to the 13 rape victims. The judge said the convicted prisoners would not be entitled to any remission considering the heinous nature of the crimes committed.
The judge delivered the verdict in a packed courthall where the godman and other accused were produced. Activists of some women`s organisations raised slogans against the godman when he was brought to the court. As many as 49 prosecution witnesses and 64 defence witnesses were examinedin the case which came to light after one of the victims, Sureshkumari, escaped from the ashram and exposed the sex scandal in early 1994.
Prominent among the prosecution witnesses was forensic expert Jayaprakash who established the identity of murder victim Ravi from a skull recovered from the ashram. The prosecution also roped in as witnesses several doctors in Tiruchi and Pudukottai who had attended on the girls raped by Premananda. One of the victims, Aruljothi, became pregnant and a DNA test done in Hyderabad established that Premananda was the culprit.Noted criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani appeared for Premananda who was arrested along with eight others in November 1994. Two of the accused later turned approvers. Premananda later told newsmen that he would appeal against the judgment.
Divyadevi, one of the principal disciples of Premananda, escaped immediately after the scandal came to light and her properties worth Rs.80 lakh were attached to the court. She is still untraced.
PTI adds: The godman was in a defiantly jovial mood after the judgment, as he smiled at photographers while being taken back to prison, and said: ”Truth will ultimately triumph.“ ‘Swami` Premananda`s sordid story unfolded in the middle of November 1994, when the girls he had raped came out with startling revelatory interviews to a leading English daily. The girls had sought shelter with the help of some women activists at ‘Udavum Karangal`, a charitable organisation in Chennai.
The interviews created a sensation, and the then AIADMK government, already plagued by a whisper campaign that the disgraced ‘hermit` was close to some of the ministers, swung into action within days. The Crime Branch-CID of the state police raided Premananda`s ashram at Viralimalai near Tiruchirappalli and arrested Premananda and others. But Divya, a mysterious associate of Premananda, who was known to the ashramites as Divya Mataji, managed to give the slip to the police as she was abroad when the scandal broke out.
Premananda, whose real name was Ravi, settled down in India in the early 1980s after fleeing Sri Lanka as a refugee. With the help of some close friends, he set up the ashram in sylvan environs. Nothing in the ashram`s external appearance suggested the sordid goings-on inside.
IRREFUTABLE DNA TEST EVIDENCE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
An epoch making 408 page judgment by judge R. Bhanumathi finally put an end to a case of debauchery of a self proclaimed “celibate” godman, Swami Premananda of Sri Lanka who came to Tamil Nadu as a refugee in the eighties. A straight case of establishing paternity through a standard DNA test was complicated by people and courts. The other crimes committed by the godman too came out as major revelations that spanned a three-year court trial finally culminating in a sentence of life imprisonment for two terms and a hefty fine of Rs.66,40,000. It is said he was involved in the rape of 13 girls in his ashram near Tiruchirapalli and for ordering the murder of a male inmate, all Sri Lankan refugees. Cases such as these are eye-openers and throw up a lot of issues to debate about people’s gullibility, indisputable scientific evidence, awe about expert opinion.
The unassailable evidence provided by the DNA finger printing conducted by Dr. Lalji Singh, Deputy Director of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), and currently, officer on special duty at the Center for DNA Finger Printing and Diagnostics (CDFD) established the 45 – year old Swami Premananda as the biological father of the foetus as a result of rape of 19-year-old Arul Jyothi.
The DNA test evidence was presented by the prosecution based on four types of probes of international standards such as – the multi locus, single locus, PCR based VNTR loci and micro- satellite investigation. This was sought to be contested by the defence by having a British expert present the DNA test results. That there is a ban placed by the Medical Council of India on seeking such expertise from abroad when comparable expertise is available within the country seems to have been ignored by the Sessions court which was ordered by the High Court to send the foetal samples sent by the Tamil Nadu police to Dr. Lalji Singh. What is more astonishing is that the British expert whose report was presented by the defence lawyer Ram Jethmalani was neither based on tests conducted as per international standards (as were done by the CCMB) nor certified and supported by photographs as was done in the case of evidence provided by the prosecution. Further, the British geneticist’s report puts to shame British science where DNA finger printing originated and casts serious aspersions on the British lab which conducted the actual test. It goes to prove that the scientific expertise as is widely believed is not the exclusive preserve of the west but as much a prized possession enjoyed by the Indian scientific community. Dr. Woll, the British genticist admitted that the DNA evidence provided by the Indian scientists’ team to be far superior to the only short tandem repeat (STR) test he had done at another lab goes a long way in spreading the message across about the Indian expertise.
Even the court found the tests done at the CCMB far superior to those done anywhere abroad. It is a great victory to science and scientists of the so called “land of snakes and snake charmers” who, little known as it may be, that they follow rigorous standards and procedures for their scientific tests. Simply because a report is sought from a foreign expert, one cannot accept the results in awe even when it is not supported with proper photographs, documentation and due certification.
Cases such as Premananda’s provide a good opportunity to take science to such authorities for whom new technologies are relevant as well as to many a common man by making the DNA test public knowledge. Dr. Lalji Singh gives a lot of credit in this context to the Tamil Nadu police and commends the timeliness of their action in taking appropriate steps of obtaining the aborted foetal sample from Arul Joythi, and obtaining the court’s permission to send it for DNA testing.
Obtaining the foetus for providing evidence was crucial and of paramount importance in this case. The Swami despite the rape of 13 victims could not be brought to book until the clinching evidence of the DNA test results whereby it was shown that the foetal DNA pattern contained 50% of the bands from its biological father, the Swami, and 50% of the bands from its biological mother Arul Jyothi. Refuting the defence accusations of manipulation of foetal evidences Dr. Lalji said, “the courts must approach the scientific evidence in a scientific way and not suspect it and dub it as connivance with the police. It is impossible for any scientist to mix the sperm and the egg of the accused and the victim to obtain a DNA pattern, for it is a heritable occurrence”. The courts must be urged to adopt a scientific approach to find out the validity and the reliability of the test procedures than viewing the test results with suspicion.
Had the case gone against the CCMB evidence, it would have been a point for the multinational conglomerates to push themselves and their wares to set up shop on Indian soil on the pretext that such expertise was not available within our country, because DNA tests and other genetic tests are a big business abroad. Although there are a number of scientific institutions which carry out the DNA finger printing test including the Indian Institute of Science,(IISc) Bangalore, Tata Institute of Fundamental research, both Bombay and Bangalore, Madurai Kamaraj University of Life Sciences, Anna University, but none of them do the test regularly for anyone because of the repeated court appearances and long pendency of cases.
To standardize on the procedures and guidelines of such genetic tests whose results are sought by courts, Dr. Lalji Singh suggests setting up of a national committee and once the guidelines are laid down, results of such tests must be included in the evidence act as scientific evidence. The association for the promotion of DNA finger printing and other DNA technologies has set up a committee with the initiative from CDFD has formulated standards, quality assurance and guidelines for DNA finger printing. The committee has submitted the report to the association and once the suggested changes are incorporated, the document will be ready for finalization and printing. This document may be considered by the Government of India as a national document in setting up a national committee to review and make necessary changes. Currently, these Guidelines are being followed by the CDFD. Although, the DNA test used to be conducted at the CCMB before, since March 1996, the CDFD has been conducting the DNA and other genetic tests.
The CDFD is an autonomous institution of the department of biotechnology currenty housed in CCMB. It is proposed to have its own building near Himayat Sagar close to the A.P.Police Academy.

Narayanjot Kaurji,
Really the proverb of the owl is powerful metaphor as there are so many hurdles in getting justice. There is a complete channel--- that channel has hundreds of joints. If there is a single weak joint then the current will not pass and the energy that has been supplied from one end will not be passed on to the last end. So, fair trial is the need of hour. Justice can be served on the basis of evidences. The collection of evidences is a hard task.

I am thankful to you that you have admitted my point of fact and the matter will be discussed between members and it will be nice if we can reach to a fruitful results in the discussion.
I have given evidences regarding DNA tests trial and conviction as above. But such type of cases are rare. I hope with the above mentioned example the law regarding DNA and the application by the law enforcement agencies would be clear. How the victim can move further and how the investigation is being done it is a Herculean task.

First of all the Govt should take drastic steps to stop sexual harassment in the offices, working places and in the society. Unless and until the menace of sexual harassment is not checked the justice can not be made. when the civil society members winks and make discussion, the result to discussion limits to the blog and the purpose to put pressure on the Govt to check the moral laxity can not be achieved.

I am really thankful for being a part of discussion on the International issue.

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